This is Ja'nas. She is nine years old and have been teaching her for a while. she doesn't speak a lick of Spanish but she has been coming to church for months with one of the families. She is awesome and did great singing noche de luz at the Christmas party!
This is the Lerdo's again. We had dinner with them last night and they surprised us with Christmas gifts. They gave us tights, no-show socks and white shades! Man, they must know we are missionaries or something!
I love being a missionary. Life is beautiful!
12/24/13
Puees mis queridos.. FELIZ NAVIDAD!
I can't believe it is already here!
This has been such a fun Christmas season, with lots and lots of Christmas
messages leading up to the big day!
Well... we will be talking tomorrow...
but I guess I can give you a little run down of this past week, because it's
been great! We have seen so many great miracles, especially with our less
active members. We have been really struggling finding new investigators, and
we think that it might be a way of the Lord saying that we really need to work
on the rescue effort! (obviously, we are still searching to find new people,
but it has been great!). So Saturday we had the ward Christmas party, and we
really wanted to make sure we could have as many less active members there as
possible! So flashback to a few weeks ago, we were trying to contact some of
the members in our new area, and the elders told us they had been working with
one family in specific. Well. We stopped by... she opened the door... told us
she didn't want anything to do with the Church... and slammed the door. Ay!
Well we reported it to the Relief Society president, who also happens to be her
visiting teacher, and she was startled! She said to give her some space, and
she would figure out what happened. Well, a few weeks passed and on Friday we
felt that we should pass by and invite her to the activity. Replace fear with
faith. We knocked and she answered and said something to the extent of "you
want to come in or something..."... um... yes? Well she let us in and we
invited her to the activity. We felt it might not be the most appropriate to
ask to share a message, so we just asked to sing a hymn and say a prayer. She
hesitantly agreed. We sang the hymn and by the end of the prayer you could see
how the Spirit had softened her heart. She opened up to us about how she loves
the Church and she knows without a doubt that the Gospel is true, but she had
had a bad encounter with some members (perfect church, imperfect people). Well
we kind of just left it at that. Well mis queridos... guess who came to the
Christmas party? And to church the next day?! You betcha. She said she kind of
just put it all into perspective, as to what really mattered. Miracle! Then on Sunday
our 8:00 appointment fell through, and we decided to go caroling to some other
members! There is a new family that moved from Mexico a few months ago but
hasn’t come to our ward yet so we have really wanted to work with them. Well we
had passed by just a few days earlier to invite them to the party, and a little
before that to share a message, and so we were a little worried that we would
be bugging them. So we decided we would just sing a hymn at the door and go!
Well, they invited us in and we got to talk to them for a while. Then they
asked if we had anywhere to spend "la noche buena"... well... we
didn't. And they said we could come have dinner with them! We are so excited to
go over tonight and spend some time with them!
One of the many, many amazing things
about serving in Texas is that we get a sample of so many cultures. Not just
one specific country, but we have heard of or celebrated in some form
Christmas' of all the Hispanic countries. One thing is that they don't really
do anything on Christmas day. Everything is celebrated tonight! They have a
late big dinner, and then they wait until midnight for "nino dios",
and then open all their presents! So… as missionaries we won't quite get to
have the full experience, but we are going to two noche buena dinners
tonight... (pray for us. :) Then tomorrow we are actually going to be spending
most of the day at the assisted living center! We are helping out with the
activities they are having and visiting with the residents who won't have any
family visiting them. We are super excited!
Well, I hope you all have a
wonderful day. It really is such a beautiful time of season. We had the
Christmas conference yesterday, and it really put it all into perspective. The
majority of the time we talked about the Atonement and really how much it means
for us. One statement by a missionary in specific really hit deep when he said,
"what did Christ have to gain from the Atonement?" In John 6 it
explains how he came to do the will of the Father, but really what is the will
of the Father? In verse 39 it says that everything that He has given Him (all
of us, his brothers and sisters) not be lost (physical death). And if they
believe in Him, they receive eternal life! So what does Christ gain from the
Atonement? He gains His brothers and sisters. We say that we want to return to
live with Them, but imagine how much They desire us to return to live with Them!
So this Christmas, I invite you to take a step back, and think about the truly
infinite love our Heavenly Father and our Brother Jesus Christ have for us, and
what They desire for us! So we just have to do our part, because They have made
it all possible.
I love you all so much! Have a very
Merry Christmas!! Replace fear with faith! Talk to you tomorrow :)
les quiero demasiado!
Hermana Draper
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